DEMOS Project - Module: Disability Awareness

Definitions (continued)

World Health Organisation (WHO)
Union of Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS)
Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS)

Union of Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS)

Disabled people's organisations have suggested alternative definitions. The one that is most relevant to today's usages in the UK is that put forward by the Union of Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS).

The UPIAS defined impairment as:

lacking all or part of a limb or having a defective limb, organism or mechanism of the body.

(The definition is limited to physical impairments because that was the focus of the organisation at the time.)

More importantly it changes the focus of definitions of disability away from the individual.

Disability is defined as:

the disadvantage or restriction caused by a contemporary social organisation which takes no or little account of people who have physical impairments and thus excludes them from the mainstream of social activities.

Therefore disabled people are people with impairments who are disabled by barriers in society.

The central theme of the definition that disability is external to the individual and is a result of environmental and social factors, has been widely accepted by organisations representing disabled people and forms the backbone of the social model of disability.

Next: UCAS

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